When you adapt a book into a TV series, there will naturally be some shifts. Pacing a series and pacing a book are two different tasks, and as budget and logistics come into play, the purely imaginary world of the book needs to adapt to real-world limits. That’s why it’s a good idea to have the creator of the source material on hand to approve those changes and keep things true to the original vision. For example, The Last of Us is often heralded as one of the best TV adaptations in recent years, and that’s in part because the original game writer, Neil Druckmann, is a co-showrunner.
Silo, Apple TV+’s breakout sci-fi hit, took the same approach. Hugh Howey, who wrote the original trilogy of novels, is on board as an executive producer and, according to showrunner Graham Yost, is always on hand to chime in about what’s changing in the move from page to screen.
